Bless you Eli for not replying inside a quote.
Take a note G-Man
Or in Hebrew, Tevorach.
Originally posted by Eli
Sieging a population is not targetting civlians.
I gotta note this one. What is a siege? Blocking ANY movement, or ANY income, and almost ANY reach to food from an entire population, so how does that does
not target Civilian population? Please explain. Tasbir
Remember that the goal of the siege is to stop suicide bombers from leaving the cities.
I never said the
goal is to target Civilians, but the means sure are.
Are you into "The cause justifies the means" kind of attitude?
Cos I'm not.
Universally, the lives of a Palestinian family are just as important as the lives of an Israeli family. Especially for Palestinians.
And then you wonder how the Hamas gets such a wide support.
Well Du'h, explain to the Palestinian family that the siege is in order to "target" terrorists and we do not really mean to paralyze you economically and limit any freedom you still have as a subject people.
But I guess that tens of dead Israelis is a small price to pay so that Palestinians will be able to move freely.
No, you see, there are more than 600 Palestinian Civilians (not combatants of any kind, uniform or not) who died in this conflict between the past (can't recall what date) untill now.
There are 400+ Israelis who died. (Civilians I think, but not sure, I can check up later).
On top of that, the Palestinians live from a dollar a day, have been occupied with no rights for 35 years, when an action of one terrorist from Jenin or Nablus paralyzes the entire City from living at all.
And then some kid gets courage to run and get food for his family, throw a stone on the IDF in the way maybe, and he gets shot and killed along with is mother.
We read that on YNet (Or Haaretz) every few days on rough times or every few weeks on easier times.
And then there's an investigation, blah blah blah, and you never hear about it's results.
Explain
that to the Palestinian family. Explain to them the IDF doctrine that even though
the IDF is the tresspasser (occupying foreign territory), every slight suspicion will cause live ammo into the heads of the 14 year old.
That's a doctrine of the IDF, shoot onto any suspicious characters.
That and use human shields.
From 1987 to January 31st, 2002,
101 13 year old and younger Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli security forces.
Israeli Citizens killed about another 14 13 and younger Palestinian
kids.
I can bring you stories that tell you that while the entire Palestinian population is sieged when someone gets hurt, the Settlers who provoke and kill Palestinians are barely outlawed.
But the thread is
limited in the amount of characters for the amount of those stories.
Instead of fighting terrorism he succumbed to more and more demands, he did nothing to directly stop the terrorists.
He tried to block the situation before it deteriorates, by appeasement. It didn't cause that much Damage btw, "Defensive Wall" came much later and also grabbed the support of the moderate left.
Until Defensive Shield most of the Israeli actions were along the lines of "we'll make a whole in this police station so that Arafat will understand he needs to stop terror".
But Sharon is also to blame for this.
Not only shelling empty police stations, but also keeping the occupation going.
In what period between 1967 to 1987 did Israel stop the occupation, improve the lives of Palestinains or search for a Palestinian leadership
before the first Palestinian intifada?
None.
It was a mixed policy of "Let them feel contended as subject people" and "Let's not help them getting any nationality or rights or a country".
It was a policy of an Expansionist and Occupant country, and everyone is to blame for that. Left aswell as the Right.
I have no doubt that if 2 days after the intifada began Israel had reconquered all Pal cities a-la Defensive Shield, hundreds of lives would've been saved.
You mean reconquered as sieged.
Yeah, lives would have been saved, in retrospect.
The Intifada came as a surprise for the Gov't, who tried to keep things at hand without losing the peace process.
It was a doomed failure.
But at least it gave us hope, hope that the Palestinian population does want peace.
If they knew what Arafat missed they wouldn't start any Anti-Israeli intifada, only Anti-Arafat intifada.
Since the terrorists hide in the big cities and we dont want them to get into Israel, the only way is to siege the entire population.
The only way to completely harness the population maybe.
But don't you think of the other side too?
What if they manage to ourscale the siege? What then? Put them in camps? Put them in communitary buildings razor wired? Burn them?
Occupation is brutal, face it.
No, but I read the articles of Amira Has, a Jewish Haaretz Journalist (Female) who lives in the Gaza Strip.
What did you expect? To give 18 years old so much power and have no human rights violations?
Those violations and others are some of an IDF doctrine, some procedures everyone in the IDF knows about, and the press.
It's not the 18yo soldiers deciding on themselves.
BTW, Settlements are one of the rudest violations of International law, and siege, of Human rights.
It's parallel, we are very bad on both aspects.
Where there is war, there is always plundering, rape and unnecessary deaths. But this is definetely not a policy or intended by the goverment.
How about Sieges, Settlements, insufficient outlaw of offensive settlers, using Palestinians as human shields?
When such things willtruly become a policy and not done by groups of 18 year olds.
It already is.
I never talked about the occasional plunder or one in a million years rape comitted by an Individual, I'm talking about entire IDF doctrines, perhaps not written, affirmed by commanders, ignored by the government and published by the press.
You're trying to equate two radically different things.
It's like saying "in nazi germany people ate meat, so if you eat meat you're a nazi".
No I don't. The next stage after a complete siege on an entire population is to start putting that population in camps.
Your numbers are ****ed up.
There arent 400,000 soldiers serving in the territories, and there are only ~150-200k settlers.
I talked about IDF soldiers generally.
About the settlers, my mistake.
I used to say 200k, and then I read somewhere 400k, but it might have been a misprint.
They never faced terrorism on the same scale we have.
They never built colonies on Afghanistan.
Count the number of casualties when 10,000 Katyushas will start raining on your Nahariya, only because no one did a thing to stop the Hizballah from obtaining them.
Hisbullah is dying. Since the Israeli retreat it becomes more and more political and less and less military.
Once in a while it starts in a small shooting rage on IDF military posts or something of that sort.
Give it time to die quietly, and it won't fire any katyushas.
If the Government will be idiotic enough to start an operation against Hizbullah after a small attack it will just revive the Hizbullah instead of keeping your guns down and letting it die.
Enough to show that borders wont stop the problem.
The US borders didnt stop sept 11.
You can't be full proof against terrorism.
Israel invests much more money and resources on guarding a citizen of Jerusalem than a citizen of Ashdod. Should we evacuate Jerusalem and concentrate everyone in Ashdod?
Most of the Yerushalmim are inside the Borders of Israel.
Stop comparing Settlements to Israeli cities, it's not the same.
Boohoo.
Law has nothing to do with it.
If the world declares tommorow that the settlements are legal, will terror stop? No.
Of course not. If we declare murder is illegal/legal it won't stop either, but you still shouldn't commit it to acheive your goals.
Settlements are not the only cause for terrorism, but they sure don't help.
What if the USA will build colonies in Afghanistan? That won't cause terror, but it won't stop it either. It will just be a rude violation of International law, or moral law, of the same thing that seperates US from the TERRORISTS or Fascists, in the 21st century.
Terror will stop only when the goals of the terrorists are achieved, and the goals are the destruction of Israel.
That'll depends. I think most of the Suicide bombers would not commit their action if they lived peacefully inside their own state.
There are nuts on both sides, but the Nuts on the Palestinian side had a cause un-attentioned for 20 years, and a much broader support resulting from policies of Israel.
Just look on the Hizballah and Har Dov. Our presence there is perfectly legal, as far as the Hizballah is concerned, but they still attack.
Becase they are dying. They are triggering Israel to commit action that will revive the Hizbullah.
Can't you see that?
Their shootings on Har Dov barely affect us, but sometimes in order to let Terror Organizations and the support they collected to die quietly you need to show restraint, even if those shootings on Har Dov will kill a soldier.
And if we withdraw from Har Dov, an area that was occupied from Syria in 67, they will continue to fight until the 7 villages near the Hula Valley, who were taken in 48, are "liberated".
And they wont stop until Jerusalem is theirs.
They'll stop fighting once they die.
They want to live, they want to collect support for their actions, and they use Syrias "Hate" against Israel for that.
But their bombings do not carry much effect, and it will only be worse if Israel triggers a revive of the Hizbullah with some action.
And the Pal population wasnt doing a thing against it for 30 years, suddenly it bothers them?
Well, actually they were doing, once in a while, that only shows the Israeli policy of keeping the pals relatively content subject people worked, worked untill the Common Uprising called "Intifada".
That's right. You dont really care about morals when your life is in danger.
Life? We build settlements to perserve life? We keep the Palestinains without any rights, stockpiling their anger, while stealing more and more land, to save life?
Irrelevant, since killing them was a mistake and not a policy.
Sharon praised the operation.
It was a very weird mistake, the IDF repeats it a lot of times.
There is an Israeli policy that when there is some highly wanted in the area, Civilian lives stop from being a factor.
50 times worse than 2 years ago, before they opened fire.
Oh yeah, without any rights or Independent economy?
With Israel keeps confiscating more and more land?
They live bad because we siege them, because they uprised, because of occupation.
And where will you set the borders? Around Jerusalem, in the middle of Jerusalem, or will you just give all of the Jerusalem because it's hard to hold?
Jerusalem is just a small part of the entire border.
Calculations on where the border should be put should conserve the rights of Arabs in the area, Jews in the area, and normal life.
Most likely a bigger effort to seperate east Jerusalem from West Jerusalem should be taken than in the other parts of the border, but that's life.
There are no free meals, sometimes you have to choose between working very hard with violating minimum rights to working slightly hard and violating every Moral sane people still have.
Borders wont stop the Palestinians from sitting quietly a year and stockpiling missiles. Then, just like in the north, we will have another existential threat on our hands.
Give me a break. Existential?
Maybe life threatening, but existential? You really think the Palestinians can risk the existence of Israel? With our 10 billion dollar army and their TOW2 or Kassams?
BTW, as far as I recall, missiles are barely used in the north.
Civilians barely hurt.
Hizbullah stockpiles weapons hoping that Israel will trigger the use of them, but it won't initiate a full scale war. It wants Israel to revive it, because it lacks broad support for such action.
That's why the "Random" missiles occur - last attempts to make Israel do something serious.
It can go one for a year, 2, 3 or maybe 5, but it barely threats Israel, barely hurts anyone and much prefferable to revive the Hizbullah and Other anti-Israeli organizations, and maybe even cause a full scale war, by replying.
There was no cease fire, there was just a string of Palestinian failures.
In the past, there was a case when All Palestinian oraganizations declared a cease fire. It was a one time chance. I remember it very well.
And then the IDF assasinated a leader and it all went down the drain.
In every similar conflict, even the most pacifist nations would've killed tens of thousands of civilans until now.
The only Similiar conflict is N.I., and there the Irish casualties are actually proportional.
Much more than here.
Yeah, "inside Israel". Those evil settlers arent human.
I didn't include the settlers because the numbers were very small, and wouldn't effect the point.
I can bring them out if you want.
Everything started during Barak's time, and everything is a result of the Israeli inaction during this war.
The economy deterioration was slight during Barak's time, relatively to the Hell Sharon and Silvan caused.
BTW, Barak wasn't that good either.
He is not my idol.
As a prize, here is a comparison of Water allocation in the territories.
Kiryat Arba
(settlers)
Population in December 1997: 5,800
Household water supply in 1997: 765,120 m3
Daily useage (per person): July 1997: 547 liters/day
Hebron
(Palestinians)
Population in December 1997: 119,230
Household water supply in 1997: 3,170,952 m3
Daily useage (per person): July 1997: 58 liters/day
)
